Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.
B. C. ForbesThe British have their own conception of what constitutes the typical American. He must have a flavor of the Wild West about him. He must do spectacular things. He must not be punctilious about dignity, decorum and other refinements characteristic of the real British gentleman. The Yankee pictured by the Briton must be a bustler. If he is occasionally flagrantly indiscreet in speech and action, then he is so much more surely stamped the genuine article. The most typical American the British ever set their eyes on was, in their judgment, Theodore Roosevelt.
B. C. ForbesJustice must be blind to the hardness or softness of a man's hands, as well as to the leanness or fatness of his pocketbook
B. C. ForbesThere are two brands of discontent: the brand that merely fosters greed and snarling and back-biting, and the brand that inspires greater and greater effort to reach the desired goal. Which is your brand?
B. C. ForbesAccuse American businessmen of being responsible for radicalism and they would indignantly deny the accusation. Yet, in one fundamental sense, they are responsible. They are responsible in the sense that they have utterly neglected to take part in the work and the organization which precede the choosing of candidates for political office. Local political organizations all over the land are conducted and controlled, as a rule, by politicians.... Businessmen have shirked such responsibilities, leaving an untrammeled field to others less capable of carrying on the administration of government.
B. C. Forbes